Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash may not be this season’s most hyped show, but it’s got some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen in animation. The art style may not be for everyone, but if you can appreciate some good watercolor-looking settings, it’s definitely worth checking out.

Please enjoy some of these screen caps and gifs! To give it a bit of sustenance, I’ve added some additional comments for how I approached each gif. They were all taken from the second episode and a few are from the opening theme. Thank you, A-1 Pictures, for the wonderful work!

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Manato hanging out by the river. I liked this shot and wanted to make it so you could easily just stare at it. Unfortunately, with the color capacity on gifs, it wasn’t quite turning out as I had hoped [original]. It was too pixel-y— most notibly on our center of focus, Manato, so I scrubbed out some of the detailing and left him with a simpler color scheme. This allows the program to devote less resources to keeping the few colors he has and re-distribute the excess elsewhere. It makes his shading simpler, but stand out more.

Finally, I adjusted some of the timings on the river and actually had it fade into the first frame of the river to make it loop better. There’s a small jitter if you look very carefully, but it’s otherwise easy to get lost in this lazy river.

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Some shots of the city:

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A gif of the town’s market. Nothing particularly special about making this one— I just liked the way it looked. It’s a bit of a task to get a decent file size because of the overwhelming amount of colors, but the way it pans was too good to not capture.

The main protagonist, Haruhiro, overlooking the city:

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Our heroes looking out from their temporary home:

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A fountain in the town. The use of colors and simple shapes on the shrubs was beautiful, and the way it’s shaded is just fantastic. The simplicity of the movements made it so this one could really shine and look pretty. Once I had the idea in mind, it was a matter of finding a frame that looked similar to the first and then telling it to loop.

Some shots from the opening:

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I liked each of these shots from the opening, but they go by in a matter of maybe 3 seconds— too quick to really appreciate. This one was just a matter of slowing it all down and figuring out what colors looked best. It was essential to showcase this because there’s not too many chances to see outside of the city (YET) and how beautiful the wilderness is in the world of Grimgar.

Nighttime scenery:

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As I’ve previously mentioned, the less frames you’ve got in an animation, the prettier you can allow it to be. This one is just a few frames stretched out over a few seconds, and then played again in reverse to make it look as though Haruhiro is looking around, confused, in the cold of night.

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Everybody needs a frog hat. This is clearly the reason to watch the show. 10/10 met all expectations.

When I originally made it, I goofed up the animation since it’s not actually supposed to loop so nicely. I took out some frames and looped the animation so it’d look like it does above, but I DIDN’T account for Shihoru’s (the girl on the right) change in stance. She raises her hands up to clap after Yume (to the left) puts on the hat. This made it a bit unnatural looking [original], so I cut out the still image of her hands in the air and pasted it over the frames where her hands are supposed to be at her sides.

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Blacksmithing! Don’t be fooled at how simple this appears to be to make. In the actual show, this scene pans from right to left. What I did was move each frame of the blacksmith into place from where he’s sitting and align them so that he’s the only one moving. On frames where the set doesn’t exist, I had ones that did makes up for the lack of content.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get them all right the first time, so if you look in this example at the wall above him and at the veggies / shovel to his right, they’re moving/wobbling. To remedy this, I made a consistent copy and pasted them over top of the inconsistencies— shaping around his arm/hammer in each frame.

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Ranta being a jerk to one of the animals. Another example of cutting frames that match/flow naturally.

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Finally, we see our heroes looking out across the distance, full of hope, as another day of struggles and adventures comes to a close.

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Thanks for reading! If you liked what you saw here, check out some of my other GIF work from 2015 and what goes into the process. If you have any questions, comments, or just want to say hello, feel free to drop me a line below or find me for even more gifs on Twitter @unimplied.